Deep Dive: Grab Holdings ($GRAB)

Grab is one of Southeast Asia’s leading superapps. Its 3 main business segments are Delivery (food, groceries, and parcels) at ~53%, Mobility (cabs, two-wheeler rides, etc.) at ~36%, and Financial Services (payments and lending) at ~10% of FY25 revenue.

It’s currently down 55% over the last year.

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It is operational in 8 countries and was used by 54 million people in June 2026. The business model is a marketplace model in which Grab takes a cut of every dollar of commerce conducted on its platform. The core value proposition is connecting consumers who need food or hyperlocal deliveries, or who want to travel, with gig workers and businesses willing to provide these services. The financial services business serves both ends of the marketplace, supporting consumers (financing, app payments) and businesses (working capital financing and payment infrastructure).

The company was formed in Malaysia in 2012 as MyTeksi. Two Harvard classmates, Anthony Tan and Tan Ling, founded it and focused on making taxis safer for women. Anthony Tan remains CEO to this day, while Ms. Ling is no longer with the firm. Grab expanded into Singapore and added cars and bikes to the platform. In 2018, they bought out Uber’s S.E. Asian business in exchange for giving Uber a ~27.5% stake in Grab. The company expanded into other segments by encouraging its existing mobility users to adopt other products.

Deliveries is the largest segment, accounting for ~53% of Grab’s FY25 revenue. In Q2’26, the delivery GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) was $4.25B, up 24% in constant currency. GMV measures the total value of transactions processed through the platform. Grab takes a portion of GMV and recognizes it as revenue. Revenue was $531M, and segment EBITDA was $96M.

Grab held an estimated 55% of Southeast Asia's delivery GMV in 2025. ShopeeFood is second with a 14% share, and Foodpanda is third at 11% (all are FY25 estimates). ShopeeFood has gained share over the last few years, driven by its e-commerce app.

Below is the relative position of Grab’s food delivery network across countries. The table shows data from the largest market to the smallest (by GMV).

GrabMart is Grab’s delivery platform for quick commerce or hyperlocal delivery of groceries and other retail items. GrabMart is growing ~1.7x faster than food, but only ~14% of food users buy groceries on the app (compared to ~30% among global peers).

Advertising is no longer disclosed as a line item. But Grab reported an annualized run rate of $236M in Q2'25, up 45%, with 228,000 active advertisers by Q4'25. In Q2'26, the number of advertisers grew 21%, and the average spend per advertiser grew 24%. This points to a run-rate above $300M today.

Mobility was ~36% of revenue in FY25. Q2’FY26 GMV was $2.21B and grew by 18% in constant currency. Rides were up 28%, and revenue was up 12%. This large gap was due to the affordability incentives Grab had to offer during the oil crisis to support drivers on the platform. Segment EBITDA was $191M or 8.6% of GMV, within management’s guidance of 8.5% to 9%.

Mobility is the company’s most profitable segment. Grab is the clear regional leader in ride-hailing, as you can see below.

On 18 September, Waymo announced that it will launch paid robotaxi rides in Singapore by 2028. This is its first S.E. Asian market. Singapore's transport minister said all AVs worldwide would be less than 10% of the island's 70,000 taxis and private-hire cars. So this is a long-term risk for Grab's most profitable market, not a near-term one.

Q2’FY26 revenue was $134M, up 59%. FY25 revenue was $347M, or ~10% of the FY25 revenue.

The key products in this segment are:

The strategy here is to use the bank deposits to lend to people at scale within the ecosystem. Atome is the same idea. It currently operates in 5 markets, has $470M in revenue, and was growing at 80%. Grab is paying $1.49B for 60% of the company and will buy the rest at a $2B-$4.5B valuation in 2029, depending on performance.

The financial services segment is loss-making today. Management has guided to breakeven in the second half of 2026. They have guided to $500M in segment EBITDA from financial services in 2028.

The key reasons for Grab’s ~55% drawdown are:

While sentiment toward Grab has weakened, the business has done the opposite. Growth has accelerated in each of the past 6 quarters, EBITDA has grown materially, and financial services losses have halved. Only incentives have gone the wrong way, from 10% to 10.9% of GMV. One key reason for this increase in incentives is the Iran War, and another is competitive pressure to incentivize 2-wheeler drivers to stay on the platform for both delivery and mobility.

Uber's CEO described the same pressure in his own markets last quarter, which suggests this is an industry-wide cost, not a Grab problem.

We think the market has overreacted, and we explain why below.

In Delivery, Grab’s moat is having the most riders, merchants, and users in each market except in Vietnam. This enables economies of scale and helps deliver food at a lower cost per order than other competitors.

Its moat in Mobility is similar. Having the highest number of drivers and customers in each country, other than Vietnam, enables strong platform growth.

Grab's key weakness is that, although its platform enables strong network effects, it lacks strong pricing power.

Grab’s pricing power is limited by:

What makes S.E. Asia a tough market is the presence of multiple platforms competing on price. Every app does the same things, drivers run two or three at once, and consumers switch on price. As a result, Grab has to protect its market share with incentives, which weakens margins. We have seen this happening in the recent Oil crisis as well.

Here is how competition is moving in the 2 main segments:

Uber in food delivery is the key question. When Uber sold its business to Grab in 2018, it agreed not to compete with Grab for 1 year after it sold its entire stake in Grab. Their stake is ~13.5% currently. Recently, when Uber bought Delivery Hero, it specifically kept the S.E. Asian business, even though it didn't need to. Uber’s CEO resigned from Grab’s board the same week. So 13.5% of Grab's shares could go up for sale, which also points to potentially increasing competition in food delivery. Grab’s market share gains over the last few years were mostly at Foodpanda's expense, and that could reverse if Uber decides to fund it aggressively.

One thing to note is that Uber can realistically only come back through food delivery, not mobility. They sold everything in 2018, have no drivers or licenses, and have never run a 2-wheeler network in the region. Foodpanda gives them a delivery business to build on. They have nothing similar in ride-hailing.

Sea Ltd. is the more near-term threat. On its Q1’26 call, management said that 2026 is a year of investing to deepen their moat and grow faster. Shopee’s revenue grew by 47% in Q1’26 while its EBITDA fell. So the management is chasing growth. ShopeeFood is the only competitor taking market share from Grab, and it can fund its growth with revenue from its e-commerce business. Sea is also chasing the quick-commerce market and has launched 1-hour delivery for groceries and medicines. This is key, as GrabMart is a key driver of Grab's margin expansion in its delivery business.

Till 2026, Grab’s acquisitions were small. They did tuck-ins to gain capabilities they couldn't build quickly. OVO in Indonesia (payments), Jaya Grocer in Malaysia (grocery stores), Bank Fama, which became Superbank, etc.

Recent acquisitions have broken this historical precedent. Grab spent $600M on Foodpanda’s Taiwan business, $213M for a 50% stake in Stash (a US investing app), and $1.49B for a 60% stake in Atome. With this, Grab has committed $2.5B to acquisitions over the past year. They have authorized $1.25B in buybacks in the past year.

The rationale for these acquisitions is decent on paper. Foodpanda’s Taiwan business gives them access to another market, and the other financial services acquisitions enable them to deepen their ecosystem. But there is a hint of empire-building in them.